Missile Defense

Last month, E.C. "Pete" Aldridge, Pentagon undersecretary for acquisition, said the Bush administration decided to "fast- track" the development of the military's missile defense system, which the Congressional Budget Office says could cost as much as $170 billion. The military puts systems on a "fast track" when it wants to hurry them into development. It means the programs are exempt from regulations that specify requirements for new weapons, including the traditional reporting about program time lines, effectiveness and costs.

Bus crash leaves 1 dead A 62-year-old North Carolina man was charged following a Friday morning bus crash in Southampton County in which one person was killed and another was seriously injured. Larry Brocks, of Raleigh, N.C., was charged with reckless driving in connection with the crash, in which a charter bus carrying teens from Chapel Hill, N.C., to Hampton University overturned, said Sgt. Michelle Anaya, a spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police. • Jill Belicek Gill: Very sad to hear this.

Hampton Roads congressmen voted against extra money for Newport News Shipbuilding and other ship programs Wednesday night to help preserve President Bush's missile defense plan. In a party-line vote, the House Armed Services Committee shot down a proposal by Democrats that would have pumped $985 million into shipbuilding, planes and ammunition by scaling back the funding increase slated for missile defense. Among the lost projects was a small prize for Newport News: an additional $87 million to complete the refueling of the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier.

Sen. Mark R. Warner traveled to the Middle East over the Memorial Day weekend as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Warner visited Israel and Egypt as part of a bipartisan delegation that included Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo.; Richard Burr, R-N.C.; and Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. In Israel, he toured that country's Iron Dome missile defense system and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barack. Warner said he reinforced America's desire for strong sanctions that will force Iran to stop its nuclear-enrichment program.

The House Armed Services Committee was scheduled to vote Wednesday night on an amendment that would force congressmen to choose between extra money for Newport News Shipbuilding and other ship programs or preserving full funding for President Bush's missile defense plan. The budget amend-ment, crafted by Democrats, proposed cutting $985 million from the Bush missile defense program and funneling the money into ships, planes and ammunition. Among the new projects was a prize for Newport News: an additional $87 million to complete the refueling of the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier.

The USS Ramage can do a lot of things, but one particular capability could make it more popular than ever: Ballistic missile defense. In civilian-speak, the Ramage has missiles that can shoot down enemy missiles, and that makes it a prized asset for the U.S. military in today's world. The guided-missile destroyer left Naval Station Norfolk on Tuesday for a six-month deployment in the Mediterranean Sea. It is a routine deployment, but recent developments have made life somewhat less routine.

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted in secret Thursday to add at least $800 million to President Bush's request for shipbuilding next year, including money to speed up work on a future aircraft carrier, senators confirmed. The decision, which largely mirrors a House action, appears to ensure enough money to avoid a one-year delay in construction of the first CVNX-class carrier at Northrop Grumman Newport News. Lawmakers had warned that the Navy's proposed delay, from 2006 to 2007, could force hundreds of temporary layoffs at the local shipyard.

The United States has spent about $30 billion in the last decade on a defense system that would defend the United States against intercontinental ballistic missiles. The threat of a workable orbiting defense system may have contributed to better relations with the Soviet Union. So far, we have little else to show for the time and money spent on research for what is popularly known as "Star Wars." With the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, the immediate need for such a defense system evaporated.

The consensus among some defense-industry analysts is that Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords' switch from the Republican Party to independent will do little to change the landscape for military financing. That landscape still looks pretty, the financial experts say. Yes, the switch gives Democrats control of the Senate. And, yes, investors generally think that Democrats are more tight-fisted than Republicans regarding military spending. The drop in stock prices for defense companies shortly after Jeffords' announced change reflected that concern.

Q: Should the U.S. build a "Star Wars" national missile defense program? A: I vote in favor of establishing the "Star Wars" program. The United States did away with the strategic missile program designed to retaliate against rogue nations, but with nations like China, Korea, India, Pakistan and Iraq building up their nuclear powers and with the eventual knowledge of building long- range missiles, the threat becomes very real to the American...

Rep. Rob Wittman made a swing through Yorktown this week, and he agreed to sit down with the Daily Press to talk about this and that - and by "this and that," we mean defense spending. Wittman, a Republican from the Northern Neck, sits on the House Armed Services Committee and co-chairs the Congressional Shipbuilding Caucus, so he has plenty to keep him busy. If Congress doesn't find a way to compromise, the military is facing deep defense cuts next year. The process is known by the cumbersome term "sequestration.

NORFOLK—The Department of Defense announced Thursday that three ships homeported in Norfolk will be sent to Rota, Spain, as part of a NATO missile defense plan. The Naval guided-missile destroyers will be used under the plan to guard European nations from the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. The three ships from Norfolk will be the USS Donald Cook, the USS Porter, and the USS Ross. A fourth ship from Mayport, Fla., the USS Carney, will also be sent. "We welcome Spain's partnership in stationing four U.S. Navy Aegis ships at Naval Station Rota," Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said in a news release.

The USS Ramage can do a lot of things, but one particular capability could make it more popular than ever: Ballistic missile defense. In civilian-speak, the Ramage has missiles that can shoot down enemy missiles, and that makes it a prized asset for the U.S. military in today's world. The guided-missile destroyer left Naval Station Norfolk on Tuesday for a six-month deployment in the Mediterranean Sea. It is a routine deployment, but recent developments have made life somewhat less routine.

Some of the militaries' activity in the continent's northeast region is in response to Pyongyang's nuclear activities. In the hours after North Korea said it had detonated a nuclear bomb in an underground test Monday, northeast Asia seemed quiet. But the quiet was deceptive. Two heavily armed U.S. Navy expeditionary strike groups of warships are on station in the south China Sea and the waters off Okinawa, where some 14,500 Marines are stationed within range of North Korean missiles.

Rearrange government spending Our country is facing a fiscal crisis with all the expenditures the administration has requested and Congress has already approved. Now they are considering $200 billion, or more, for Katrina relief. I agree that a lot of money will be required and some existing programs must be cut. What does this administration propose? Make tax cuts permanent; eliminate all estate taxes; reduce Medicaid funding; reduce education funding; and any other thing to protect the rich and pass the sacrificing on to the poor.

The prime minister does commit to spend $11 billion to shore up the nation's military and border security. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said Thursday that his country would opt out of the contentious U.S. missile defense program, a move that is expected to please constituents at home but could further strain relations with Washington after Canada's opposition to the Iraq war. Weeks after President Bush pressed him for a public endorsement...

Just two weeks ago, Congress was gearing up for a big political fight over missile defense that put passage of a new defense budget in jeopardy. But that was before terrorists hijacked four airplanes, destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and ripped a hole in the Pentagon. Now, with troops heading overseas and money sorely needed, lawmakers are putting partisan differences aside to support President Bush in his new war on terrorism. The latest evidence occurred Friday, when the Senate agreed to restore $1.3 billion for Bush's missile defense program -- a move aimed at ensuring approval of a defense budget before the start of the new fiscal year Oct. 1. The amendment, approved on a voice vote, gives Bush his full request of $8.3 billion for missile defense, though some of the money could be used to combat terrorism, at the Pentagon's option.

It was the kind of vote that could prove deadly in the hands of a savvy challenger on the campaign trail. Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., who built his political career around a commitment to a strong military, voted against a $393 billion defense bill last week. A blitz of 30-second television ads could accuse Warner of voting against a 4.1 percent pay raise for troops; against an extra $229 million for the first CVNX-class aircraft carrier; against an extra $415 million to help buy an additional Virginia-class submarine in 2005.

The Bush administration says the $50 billion system isn't ready for testing, but critics say it's time to find out whether it works. In its effort to build and deploy a missile defense system, the Bush administration has quietly sidestepped a federal law that requires "operational testing" for new weapons systems before they are deployed. Instead, the Defense Department has argued that its ambitious $50 billion program to destroy missiles fired at the United States is still under development and not ready for such testing even though the first interceptors of the system are scheduled to be installed and switched on this fall.

Some say the U.S. should spend billions to install missile defenses on all commercial airliners. U.S. Rep. Steve Israel of New York's Long Island sees the jets come and go from Kennedy International Airport and worries about a terrorist threat that no amount of baggage scanning can stop. Suppose a terrorist managed to smuggle a shoulder-launched missile to within a mile or so of the airfield, he said. Fired from a rooftop, a patch of woodland or even a highway overpass, the heat-seeking missile could bring down a plane and kill hundreds.